Image via Wokai.org

With about 300 million people living below the poverty line in China, microfinance–most commonly defined as small loans for impoverished individuals to help them achieve financial self-sufficiency–is an attractive option.

Wokai.org, “a capital-contributing microfinance intermediary,” is trying to bring money to Chinese entrepreneurs who want to set up like set up their own small businesses, like dumpling shops, fruit and veggie stands, and animal husbandry practices.

When Wokai launches its new Web site in mid-November, it’s going to be like Facebook, Kiva and Wikipedia combined, says 24-year-old Courtney McColgan, one of the co-founders.

Image via Wokai blog

“While we are a fundraising platform, we’re also an information platform, and we’re building a community around China microfinance in the United States,” McColgan says. She started the Internet-based nonprofit in the fall of 2006 with fellow American Casey Wilson. The two met while studying advanced Chinese at Tsinghua University, and since then, they have set up Wokai’s headquarters in Beijing and established three U.S. chapters: Seattle, San Francisco and New York. For now, they’re still recruiting a replenishable stream of interns and volunteers to help raise awareness about microfinance in China, as well as research potential lenders and set fundraising goals.

Wokai, which means “I start” in Chinese, fosters entrepreneurship and fights poverty by raising loan capital online from individual contributors for microfinance institutions (MFIs) in China. Its goal is to expand financial opportunities for the country’s poor (and mostly rural) population. Though its primary goal is fundraising, Wokai also provides “capacity building” for microfinance organizations, which can mean anything from emotional support for first-time borrowers to computer training for loan managers.

Logo via Wokai.org

How does it all work? According to the Web site,

Wokai partners with local MFIs which identify and screen potential microentrepreneur clients. Selected clients are then posted on the Wokai website through profiles that outline their business ventures and loan request. Contributors browse these profiles, select who and how much to finance, and then transfer money to Wokai through our online payment system. Once funds are transferred, Wokai distributes this loan capital to partner MFIs for allocation to microentrepreneurs. At the end of the loan cycle, partner MFIs collect loan repayments and re-issue loans.

Read my extended post on WorldChanging.com.

In the meantime, LISTEN to my podcast interview:

The ResponsibleChina Show: Courtney McColgan and Casey Wilson, Wokai.org

Music courtesy of MadMaxXB from Garageband

Image via Real Simple

This podcast is long overdue, but better late than never, right?

Back in March, when I was working as a freelance reporter for Taiwan Business TOPICS, I interviewed Jeff Delkin and Rachel Speth, the co-founders of bambu, a so-called “renewable ideas company” based in Shanghai that manufactures bamboo housewares, kitchen products and tabletops.

LISTEN:

ResponsibleChina: Jeff Delkin and Rachel Speth, bambu

Music courtesy of MadMaxXB from Garageband.

Also, read my post on WorldChanging about their new collective, called NEST, that brings several of Shanghai’s environmentally and socially responsible retailers together with a mission to promote “design with a conscience.”

Image courtesy of bambu

In addition to the podcast, here’s a short Q&A I conducted by email:

How many products have you sold, as of the end of 2007?

Over 200,000

What is the price range of your products?

We offer over 120 products; everything of which is made from bamboo. Our retail prices range from $2 for our unique Sporks and Snapstix chopsticks, to $46 for our large hand-coiled bowls.

How many employees do you have?

Rachel and I are supported by four full-time production staff in China and Vietnam. In the U.S., we outsource with a couple of firms who support us with sales and order fulfillment and inventory management.

How many craftspeople do you work with?

In China we work with several producer groups, in total, approximately 80 craftspeople. In Vietnam, that’s a more complicated question. Our woven baskets and hand coiled boils are produced in a cottage industry model. That means up to several hundred individual craftspeople are involved, working in their villages, and in some cases, supplementing their farming in between harvest seasons.

How many stores sell your products?

In the U.S. and Canada we sell bambu products in over 1500 stores. We also sell our products in Australia, UK, France and even Iceland.

Who are your major competitors?

In any one of our seven categories, we might have a competitor or two. But, we do not have any competitors who offer the depth and breadth of a product range similar to ours. And if there are any competing categories, the similarities end there. We take a more holistic approach to our brand. We have our production centers audited for working conditions.

We have our products approved food-safe by the FDA. We are the only company to have several of our raw material (bamboo) sources certified organic. We use only environmentally friendly packaging materials. By working ‘at the source’ we’re able to bring to market quality, innovative product designs.

How many dollars have you contributed to the “1% For the Planet” campaign?

1% For The Planet was created with the help of Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia, a company we have long supported and admired. We’re proud to have provided over $50,000 to non-profit organizations through our association with 1% For The Planet. Centered on the belief that companies can and should share a responsibility for the natural environment, particularly, when you consider that every business in some ways takes from the environment. It’s a sensible way to give back.

We’ve supported research work, consumer education, salmon protection, rainforest protection, initiatives in China through Conservation International, and wildlife preservation through WWF. The model allows us to choose pre-selected and approved organizations.

In fact, we include each of our staff in the process. Everyone gets a vote to decide where we make our contributions. open the selection process to each of our staff.

Please describe your contributions to the Grameen Foundation.

We were first introduced to the work of Grameen Bank which introduced the concept of micro-lending to poverty level women in Bangladesh. It’s a marvelous system that breaks the conventions of typical lending institutions and directly impacts individuals through small loans to help people start and grow a small business. That appeals to us.

The Grameen Foundation is relatively new to China. We have been wanting to find a way to ‘give back’ to China since this is where we work and live. The Grameen Foundation does that. The Foundation serves sister lending groups and individuals in rural China. While China’s economic growth is well documented, there are over 300 million people living on less than a dollar a day.

Rachel and I are involved with the GF Shanghai Volunteers Group, and also support Grameen through bambu. We are involved in several projects to raise awareness among our customers about the important work Grameen does.

Please describe your relationship with Toyota’s hybrid cars.

From bambu’s Web site: “We thought hard about this. Quoting myself: “We thought hard about this, the auto industry is a huge contributor to carbon emissions, but we applaud the efforts that The Toyota Company is making. They are out in front, making strides in changing the industry business model. The Toyota Company is one of the most admired socially responsible companies in any industry, and in the auto industry, their record and reputation is second to none.” We realize that at least for the foreseeable future, and until mass transportation can serve the needs of most individuals, personal auto ownership is a fact of life. And we’re all for supporting the move to more energy efficient options.

In this edition of the ResponsibleChina Show, I talk to Dermot O’Gorman of WWF China’s Go For Gold campaign, an initiative that that encourages Olympic athletes, National Olympic Committees, and individual tourists to offset the carbon emissions from their air travel to Beijing for this summer’s Olympic Games.

Listen to the podcast: 04-responsiblechina_-dermot-ogorman-wwf-china-and-_go-for-gold_.mp3

(Music credit: “Fresh,” by MadMaxXB from Garageband.)

To learn more about Go For Gold, visit the official site here.

On March 27th, 2007, WWF began a global campaign urging Olympic athletes to “Go for Gold.” That is, to donate the equivalent cost of the carbon emissions from their flights to meet the Gold Standard– or equivalent – offsetting projects. These include wind turbines in Madagascar, solar power projects in Costa Rica, biomass projects in India, and other energy efficiency initiatives. It is expected that China projects will begin soon.

By signing on, as individual athletes or an entire Olympic delegation, participants can become a member of the global team in the race against climate change. Even before the Olympic Games commence, these team members will already be taking home the gold for their efforts in offsetting their carbon emissions. WWF recommends the use of the following sales points for Olympic athletes and travelers to calculate their carbon emissions and to select offset projects:

www.climatefriendly.com
www.myclimate.org
www.atmosfair.de
www.nativeenergy.com
www.tricoronagreen.com

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Bio: DERMOT O’GORMAN, Country Representative, WWF China

Dermot joined WWF in May 1998. During this time he has worked as the Deputy Director, Asia Pacific Programme for WWF International in Switzerland, was the Regional Representative of WWF South Pacific Programme for 3 years, based in Fiji and as the Head of Government and Aid Agency relationships at WWF-UK in London. He currently is the Country Representative of WWF China, based in Beijing. Prior to joining WWF, Dermot worked with Government Environmental Agencies in Australia and England. including the the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Serive and the England Countryside Commission. He has two degrees in Environmental Conservation and an masters in Environmental Policy and Assessment from the London School of Economics. Dermot is Australian, is married with no children.

Background: WWF and WWF China

Since it was founded in 1961, WWF has become one of the world’s largest and most effective independent organizations dedicated to the conservation of nature. WWF now operates in around 100 countries, supported by nearly 5,2 million people worldwide.WWF has been active in China on the conservation of giant panda and its habitats since 1980, when it was invited by Chinese government as the first international NGO to work on nature conservation. In 1996, WWF opened its Beijing office and then set up its presence in eight other cities across priority eco-regions in China. Today, WWF China Porgramme Office has a staff of more than 80 working on conservation programmes, such as species, forests, freshwater and marine, climate and energy, education for sustainable development, wildlife trade and scientific development and international policy.Since 1996, WWF has invested more than 320 million yuan (USD 40 million) in over 100 projects in China.

(Photo courtesy of Caroline Campbell)

Caroline Campbell first fell in love with nature while growing up on a pig farm in rural England. Since then, she has traveled the world, telling stories about the importance of the environment, climate change and sustainability. Originally trained as a zoologist at the University of Edinburgh, Campbell became fascinated by the power of media. As a self-taught journalist and producer, she began her career by working for the BBC, for which she still produces radio features. Her first film for the BBC, “Global Dimming,” won the prestigious Wildscreen Planet Earth award and was requested to be viewed privately by the British Parliament “to expose a misunderstood aspect of the climate change debate,” she says. Campbell also worked as associate producer with the Sea Studios Foundation, in cooperation with National Geographic, on the production of “Strange Days on Planet Earth,” hosted by Edward Norton.

Today, Campbell is the creative director and co-producer of the Green Dragon Media Project, a multimedia report about the green construction industry in China. (Read her full bio/resume here.)

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Listen to my podcast interview with her:

03-responsiblechina_-caroline-campbell-from-the-green-dragon-media-project.mp3

(Music credit: “Fresh,” byMadMaxXB from GarageBand.

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“The Green Dragon Media Project expands internationally-supported research initiated by the Monterey Institute of International Studies in the U.S. and sponsored by the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. The Media Project was born out of recognition of the need to facilitate expansion of sustainable construction efforts in China through an effective multimedia communication strategy. The immediate goal is therefore to create a multimedia online report highlighting the potential opportunities for acceleration of China’s movements towards sustainability. The audience for this report includes key international players who are in a position to respond to these opportunities.”

You can read more about the project here, where you will find a list of interviewees, an image gallery, and information about how to become a sponsor. Campbell recently edited a 20-minute film containing interviews with key players in China’s green building industry. “It will just open the ‘Pandora’s Box,’ if you like, to see what’s there,” she says of Green Dragon Media’s introduction to an international audience. (The film recently debuted at Chicago’s Green Build Expo on November 8th.)

Campbell says she believes in the potential for China to be a leader in the green building industry, but she acknowledges that there are a couple of barriers to the country’s success. The first is a general lack of understanding among Chinese developers about the green building industry, mainly because the country does not have trade associations to help disseminate information about sourcing new products and technology. “It gets left to the business people, who are very busy, so there’s very little understanding on how to get hold of products and how much they cost and who’s making them,” Campbell says.

The second barrier is a lack of education among local government officials about the central government’s energy efficiency policies. “If you’re putting these fairly ambitious energy saving codes on every building in China through the central government, and you’re not enforcing them, and your local government officials don’t really understand the reasoning, they see a much cheaper way of doing it,” Campbell says. “It’s not going to happen that easily unless the people are educated about the actual cost benefits and social benefits.”

The goal of the Green Dragon Media Project, then, is to educate people around the world about China’s unprecedented opportunity for green construction and to create a community of green building professionals and advocates who can share information with each other. Eventually, Campbell and her team hope to launch a new media production company that focuses specifically on the green building industry. People who might want to get involved in the initiative include people with technical media skills or English-Chinese translation experience, as well as business professionals, such as venture capitalists, who want to support the project’s goals.

Contact the Green Dragon Media Project team:

• Max Perelman
• Research Director / Producer
• +1.831.917.7641
• max@greendragonfilm.org

• Caroline Campbell
• Creative Director / Producer
• +1.831.224.6083
• caroline@greendragonfilm.org

• River Lu
• Localization Director / Interpreter
• +1.831.917.5187
• rivergreendragon@gmail.com

[tags]China, green construction, sustainable development, Green Dragon Media Project[/tags]

Update: Conrad Clark received the Altadis New Directors Award at the Sans Sebastian Film Festival. Congrats, Conrad!

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Last week, I spoke to Conrad Clark, 28, producer and director from the Shanghai-based film company, Practice Productions.

Clark received his master’s degree from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, where he studied anthropology and cinema. Born to an English father and an Austrian mother, Clark grew up in the U.K. and France, and now, he’s expanded his international background to include — where else? but — China, where he just wrapped up shooting his latest film, “Soul Carriage.” The movie will make its world premiere at the Sans Sebastian Film Festival on September 25th.

“Soul Carriage,” a literal translation of the Chinese word for hearse, or “ling che,” tells the story of a migrant worker from a construction company in Shanghai who must return the body of his dead friend back to his family in the countryside of Zhejiang province. However, the “main character” of the film, according to Clark, is the physical environment of China, which is undergoing massive urbanization and transformation while struggling to achieve sustainability, serving as a metaphor for the psychological dilemma of millions of Chinese people, especially migrant workers, who are searching for either spiritual or material fulfillment.

I talked to Clark about what inspired him, what he learned about China, and what he hopes audiences get out of watching his film.

02-responsiblechina_-conrad-clark-china-in-_soul-carriage_.mp3Conrad Clark, China in “Soul Carriage”
(Music credit: “Fresh,” by MadMaxXB from GarageBand.)

• For more on Practice Productions, click here. Go to “Creative” –> “Soul Carriage” for multimedia features about the film. Included is an interactive photobook, “Soul Present,” about contemporary architecture in China.

• Read about Chinese migrant workers in my previous post about Evan Osnos’ article in the Chicago Tribune:
  “Spotlight on the Trib’s Beijing Correspondent, Evan Osnos“

[tags]Conrad Clark, Soul Carriage, China, migrant workers, Sans Sebastian Film Festival[/tags]

I’m experimenting with podcasts now!

Check out my VERY FIRST EPISODE, an interview with Doug Ross, an environmentalist and producer from CapitolEcoWatch.com, a new Web site that posts video and podcasts from Washington D.C., covering environmental investigations, legislation, links to governmental agencies and NGOs, and daily news related to green issues.

I was first introduced to Ross while working with Christine Lu on The China Business Show (listen to that podcast here.) As a fairly recent observer of China (his first visit to the country was back in 2000), Ross may still have a lot to learn about the country, but he’s doing his best to share knowledge and encourage others to get involved. He is also a strong advocate for the Asian-American community, creating www.ichinese.tv to profile Asian-American entertainers.

respchi-2007-08-22.mp3An Interview with Doug Ross: China and the Environment from a Storyteller’s Perspective
(Music credit: “Fresh,” by MadMaxXB from GarageBand.)

As this is my first experience playing with GarageBand and podcasting, please excuse any technical mishaps. Content-wise, I kept the discussion fairly casual. I chose Ross because 1) I had worked with him before (that’s called “guanxi”) and 2) I wanted to get the perspective of someone who approaches China from a storyteller’s perspective. Over the next few weeks, as I interview more China experts, I want to remind you to listen to their words knowing that they are only sharing one side of the story, and that it takes more than one person to understand a whole country. Ross seems to understand that point very well–he is concerned with individual stories, but only when understood within the context of history and social conditions. And he is very aware of his “outsider” status, as a “big white man from Texas,” as I bluntly point out during our conversation. As a professional storyteller, Ross knows how to ask the right questions, stay humble and remember the big picture.

I asked Doug Ross the following questions:

• What are your first impressions of China?
• What did you learn from your experience filming documentaries in China?
• What is it like being an outsider?
• What do you think is the most important story to tell about China?
• How are you making difference with CapitolEcoWatch.com?
• What is your ultimate goal as a producer and as an environmentalist?
• What should people know about China right now?

From his resume:

Doug Ross
Producer
Wang-Ross Communications
Email: dsross007@mac.com
Web: www.CapitolEcoWatch.com // www.iChinese.tv

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If you are interested in being a guest on my show, please email me at erica@responsiblechina.com. I’d love to talk!

Another great podcast from asap:

Making peace with ‘Made in China’

The new book “A Year Without ‘Made in China’” details business journalist Sara Bongiorni’s efforts not to buy any products made in that booming country for 12 months — from sneakers to mousetraps, toy swords to cargo pants.

Bongiorni emphasizes her intention to present her book from the perspective of an “ordinary person.” Her book is more of a memoir than an in-depth analysis of the global economy. Bongiorni, a business writer, writes in the first person, interspersing her prose with bits of cutesy dialogue and carefully selected literary devices. The book’s back cover talks of a “boycott” of Chinese goods, but in the asap podcast, Bongiorni stresses that she had no political agenda while writing the book.

Despite Bongiorni’s playful tone (”It will be fun,” she convinces her husband, “sort of like an adventure,”) there is an obvious feeling of anxiety regarding China’s infiltration of the American marketplace. This unease probably stems from stereotypes and media depictions of China as a menacing dragon figure–how many news reports have you read in the past five years warning you to be fearful/suspicious/worried of China’s ascent to power?

Bongiorni’s decision to avoid the “Made in China” label is inspired by nothing more than a feeling of being overwhelmed and perhaps annoyed that everything from toys to coffeemakers are, yup, MADE IN CHINA. I think Bongiorni’s little “experiment” of forced avoidance says more about our crippling habits of consumerism than it does with China’s meteoric rise to our shopping mall shelves.

“A China boycott is likely to turn our lives upside down,” Bongiorni writes.

So what does she and her family learn from a year without Chinese goods? “Coming to terms with the fact that we’re really no longer self-reliant.” And also, a newfound appreciation for buying cheap stuff, à la Wal-Mart and Payless. Yay! More shopping!

From her interview with Foreign Policy:

A lot of people think that China makes only shoddy and cheap things, but I found that not to be true. There are a lot of increasingly high-end products coming from there. I saw everything from Barbie-shaped chocolates to wedding dresses from China. It was an eye-popping view of just how much we rely on China for the daily products we use . . . .

People know about the downside of trade with China—they think about lost U.S. manufacturing jobs, and of course that’s a painful issue for a lot of people—but one of the things I also got to understand in a personal way was the benefit of access to often good-quality, low-cost goods.

And notes from while she was in the process of writing (notice the state of emergency–broken blenders, faulty mousetraps and mismatched flip-flops, oh my!):

A year without ‘Made in China’
The Christian Science Monitor
Commentary by Sara Bongiorni
December 20, 2005

Mini crises erupted when our blender and television broke down. The television sputtered back to life without intervention, but it was a long, hot summer without smoothies. We killed four mice with old-fashioned snapping traps because the catch-and-release ones we prefer are made in China. Last summer at the beach my husband wore a pair of mismatched flip-flops my mother found in her garage. He’d run out of options at the drug store.

For more on globalization and China:

Column: Tainted Chinese products create fear of buying
MLive.com
By Rick Haglund
July 25, 2007

It used to be that the biggest downside of importing low-cost products from China, Malaysia, Thailand and other countries was the loss of U.S. jobs by Americans who used to make the same products.

But now it’s become downright dangerous to use and consume products from other countries, many of them from China.

Hug the Asian who’s taking your job
The Seattle Times
By Tom Plate

What’s very sad right now is that most of the time in the U.S. you hear only about that one side of the coin. This is irresponsible because if enough Americans understood how much Asia is contributing to our prosperity, we might want to give Asians a hug rather than the back of our hand.

U.S. angst grows over globalization
Reuters
By Emily Kaiser
July 16, 2007

Manufacturing job losses and recalls of potentially harmful Chinese-made goods have hardened negative attitudes. A recent survey from the Financial Services Forum found that 49 percent of Americans had a favorable view of globalization, down from 54 percent a year earlier.

And for a fun read:

A Mickey Mouse Approach to Globalization
YaleGlobal
By Jeffrey N. Wasserstrom
June 16, 2003

According to Wasserstrom, the key to understanding cultural globalization is to identify “who is doing the wearing, singing, drinking, or shopping.” To a Beijing university student, a Big Mac might mean romance, but to Friedman, it’s just a burger.

[tags]Made in China, Sara Bongiorni, China, globalization, consumerism, podcast[/tags]

(Photo via Toddcamm.com)

Stolen Milk Crates Feed Black Market
By Raquel Maria Dillon
The Associated Press, via Forbes
July 22, 2007

A new breed of crate rustler is cashing in by swiping thousands of the containers from loading docks and selling them to shady recyclers.

The containers are chopped into bits and shipped to booming factories in China to be made into a variety of products, from pipes to flower pots. . . .

In the past two years, the high-density polyethylene has joined a growing list of materials that are being stolen and sold via a thriving underground recycling network.

An underground recycling network? And it costs the industry an estimated $80 million annually? How subversive!

Listen to this Marketplace report:

• Milking money out of stolen crates

Ryssdal: My reaction this morning when I saw this story on the AP wire was that it was about, you know, just a bunch of college kids stealing milk crates for their dorm rooms. Apparently it is a good deal more than that.

Woods: Well, it is a much bigger deal than that.

Ryssdal: What is happening to these crates and then what, eventually, are people doing with them?

Woods: They are taking the milk crates and then sending them to a recycler who regrinds them and then the regrind is sent overseas to use for other plastics — sent to Korea and to China.

[tags]China, milk crates, globalization, recycling[/tags]

Check out this recent lesson from ChinesePod, where hosts John and Jenny explore the “harsh realities of doing business in China.”

A Canadian businessman named Peter tours a local factory, one of the largest tool manufacturers in the country, and is surprised to learn that the general manager neglects employee benefits (”yuan gong fu li“).

Some illuminating sound bytes (translated from Chinese):

General Manager Lee: “In your Canada, a factory wouldn’t be able to sustain that many employees!” proudly referring to his factory’s 300-person labor force.

Peter: “That’s true, but I’ve heard that China’s hiring costs have gotten higher.”

General Manager Lee: “Definitely, but those are just national regulations of employee benefits. Just ignore them!”

Peter: “Won’t there be problems if you do that?

Peter: “But then what about me? If I had to do things according to national reguations, I would have shut down a long time ago already.”

Jenny says this is a typical Chinese way of thinking. Employee benefits have gotten better, she says, but it’s still common to run into businesspeople with no regard for fair labor standards.

Read an interesting discussion thread here. People say all sorts of fun things, like “We live on a miserable planet, life sucks for most people,” and, “I promise not to buy a hammer here in China.”